Digital signage is a form of electronic display that shows information, advertising and other messages. Conventional digital signs (such as LCD, LED, plasma displays, or projected images etc.) are often found in public and private environments, such as retail stores and corporate buildings. The benefits of digital signage over static signs, in situations where changing signs are preferred over static signs, are that the content can be easily changed, animations can be shown, and the digital signage display can be adapted to the context and the audience, even interactively. In many applications, digital signage advertising offers advantages over traditional advertising because digital advertisements are often cheaper to generate, and can be used to display unlimited content, as opposed to paper advertising. Thus, in many scenarios, digital signage can offer a superior return on investment as compared to temporary and/or promotional signs made from other substrates.
In recent years, the market for public information displays has evolved considerably to include full motion video content combined with images and text displayed on high-resolution video graphics screens. As hardware prices decline, it is becoming more and more common to see digital signage systems in shopping centers, hotels, university campuses and corporate lobbies etc. However, conventional digital signage devices typically rely on the use of separate audio/video equipment for pushing the desired content to the digital display device. For example, traditional digital signage systems often require a separate controller box and/or media player (such as a DVD player) to push content to the signage device and/or to manage the display of content. Thus, especially for applications where multiple digital signage devices are desired, the initial investment in the digital signage systems (and supporting hardware), can be quite high. In addition to high initial hardware costs, because conventional digital signage systems often require multiple connections to one or more controller box and/or media player, the installation and maintenance of such systems is often difficult and costly.